santos

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will be re-elected in 2014 according to nationwide poll released tomorrow.

Despite an approval rate as low as 29 per cent, Santos` candidature appears unstoppable as Colombians show even less faith in his likely opponents, right-winger Oscar Ivan Zuluaga and leftie Clara Lopez.

The poll commissioned by Colombia`s top media outlets, Caracol, RCN, and others, reveals less than a third will vote for Santos in the first round. Santos will therefore have to go to a head to head run-off with the second placed politician (candidates must secure over 50% to win in the first round). But this will be enough to see off Zuluaga who languishes on 14%, while support for Lopez struggles to break double figures.

In the absence of a serious alternative, Santos` eventual triumph seems inevitable.

Champaign corks are not yet popping the Casa de Nariño, but the poll comes just two weeks before Santos must announce whether he will put his name forward as a candidate next May. And with last week`s positive news from Havana, where the government is negotiating with the FARC guerrillas to end 50 years of conflict, the road to victory is becoming clearer.

President Santos is a lucky man. The decision by Alvaro Uribe to run Zuluaga, a serious but uncharismatic candidate, is almost certain to end in tears. Frankly, he lacks the presence to convince a majority of Colombians to plump for his hardline right-wing politics.

Worse, Zuluaga`s platform seems to focus almost entirely on opposition to the peace talks in Havana. This strategy is unwise, and short-sighted. As Colombia Politics has argued on numerous occasions, the candidate who says “NO” never wins. Colombians might not like the peace process very much, but they like the war even less.

If the right have chosen the wrong man and the wrong policies, the left are so riddled with division they cannot decide whether they`re coming or going. A “sancocho” of possible candidates (Lopez, Navarro, Sudarsky, Peñalosa, etc) are fighting among themselves to emerge as the “third way” option – supposedly with the intention of uniting the left with the centre. Unfortunately for them, personality politics seem to be defeating efforts to establish a disciplined electoral machine and a clear set of proposals for the country. Who can take seriously politicians unable to make a decision and stick by it?

So while anecdotally Colombia Politics has struggled to find anyone willing to vote for Santos next year, it seems impossible to see anyone voting for anyone else either.

Perhaps the “voto en blanco”, or the “none of the above” candidate will win.

President Santos has ensured much of the media is on his side, he enjoys the largesse of the state coffers which will help keep local politicians in line, and he is beginning to see results in the peace process. Does anyone stand a chance against him?

Watch out for German Vargas Lleras. Will he dig the knife into his boss`back?

Kevin Howlett

Kevin is a political consultant and lobbyist who cut his teeth working in the UK Parliament. He is a regular panelist on Colombian television, a political communication strategist and a university lecturer. Kevin is the founder and editor of Colombia Politics.

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